Why?!?!? Why do these great injustices keep happening in the world?!? I don’t think I can take it anymore!!

The post So Emotional appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Keep playing your drums. The music will follow.

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We have a contest winner! Last month we had our “Who Wants to Be In a Comic Strip?” contest, and many of you shared your favorite comic strip and entered! I wish I could draw everyone into the comic strip all the time. You guys are the coolest.

This year’s winner is………………………… (drum roll)………………………..

Devin Burgraff of Salt Lake City, Utah!

Congratulations Devin! You will be featured in a future Raccoon Toons comic strip!

Thanks to all who entered and participated! Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for reading me.

~Matt

The post Bang Your Drum appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

My goodness how time flies. Here we are again. Where is the time going?? Where is it flying to?!? What the heck time?!? I thought we were friends…

In years past, I have made my stance on resolutions abundantly clear. Just to refresh your memory, I think they’re dumb. I think this holiday is dumb. And I think you’re all dumb for celebrating it. Stupid, dumb holiday.

But I digress.

Believe it or not, I actually have made some resolutions this year. Yes, I know what you’re thinking; “but Matt, you’re so wonderful, humorous, and attractive! Why would YOU need to make New Years resolutions?!?”

And yes, well, while all of that is most certainly true, turns out there’s still plenty of stuff I need to work on. So without further ado, here is a list of some of my resolutions for 2013:

1. Do more sleeping at regular sleeping hours of the day. Do less sleeping and non-regular sleeping hours of the day.

My body used to have no problems working with it’s own unique sleep schedule. But it seems that’s no longer the case. Time to start waking up with the sun. Like a farmer. Or a rooster. Or a farmer’s rooster.

2. Eat some vegetables.

The key word here being “some.”

3. Go outside.

One of the downsides of working so much from home is I don’t always get as much sun as I would like to, particularly during the winter months. (Yes. We DO have winter months in California.) The sun is good. The sun makes people happy.

4. Read more good stuff. Cut off tv shows that I don’t like anyway.

First of all, I am not one of those people who thinks television is terrible when compared to reading. Good television has good writing, and beautifully crafted narratives. It’s a different medium. And as a former film student, I feel the need to defend it against people who claim that the visual arts of film and video are poor forms of entertainment and therefor a poor substitute for reading. I disagree. But they are different. And while I do limit my television watching only to specific hours of the evening, I am discovering that I am often watching shows I really don’t even like that much, simply on the basis of: “well, I started it, so I guess I should finish it.” Well, no more of that. Pay attention tv writers. I will no longer wade through years of bad television writing just because your first couple episodes were halfway decent.

5. Finish my screenplay.

Yes, I have a half finished screenplay. Yes, it is awesome. Yes, it is going to enable me to finally break the shackles of my meager income and live the high life before buying my own island in the Pacific and retiring to a life of peace, solitude, and island living with my hot little wife who will magically come out of the woodwork as soon as I actually have disposable income. But first I gotta finish that screenplay.

6. Make more animated Raccoon Toons.

That was always the plan, but life has gotten in the way. Let’s use all the extra time from those stupid tv shows I won’t be watching and use that for animated Raccoon Toons goodness. You want them. I want them. Let’s make it happen.

7. Increase the number of visitors to this website.

The site has grown much over the years. There are hundreds and hundreds more readers than there were when we started this ride 10 years ago. But the last year or two has plateaued a little bit in terms of growing that audience. And that isn’t going to help us all achieve a world in which I make cartoons for a living and you get regular comic strips, animated cartoons, and movies as a result. Nope. We must expand. We must build this world together. I’ll keep working on it. You invite your friends.

The post Time Flies appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

If you’ve ever been a sports fan, then you understand the delicate concept of jinxes. The notion that every little action can and will have an adverse effect on the outcome. Baseball in particular, perhaps because it is our nation’s oldest [and therefore most awesome] sport seems to permeate with these various forms of superstitions.

Players of course have a whole host of superstitions, ranging from stepping over baselines, to strictly following routines, to alienating a pitcher with complete silence if he hasn’t given up any hits yet.

But added to the 9 men on a baseball diamond, is the avid fan. The average Joe in the bleachers, or the person watching at home on the couch. The 10th man.

Scoff if you will, but as every real sports fan knows, this 10th man is absolutely critical to the outcome of the game. Anything and everything he [or she] does can forever change the outcome at any given moment. Maybe it’s wearing the same shirt several days in a row because the team keeps winning when you do. Maybe it’s continuing to drive around in your car longer than needed because a rally started the minute you began your journey. Maybe it’s the same reason why I can’t wear ANY colors of the opposing team on game day. Or why one never says “the game is over” before it’s over. Or why my friend Becky must eat an exorbitant amount  of “Runts” at my immediate command and at any given moment regardless as to what state the eventual sugar crash will leave her and her unborn child.

Because that’s our job. That’s what the 10th man does. We put ourselves out there day in and day out invoking all the power, karma, and good mo-jo we can. Games are played on the field, but it takes an entire team to win a championship. And on every team, is a 10th man.

The post Team Player appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

This past week has been an interesting one for me. I sense changes coming in my future and I’m not entirely certain what to expect. Will it mean a new and fancy job? A change of venue? A new and ridiculously adorable relationship? A new twist in this season’s episodes of Castle?? I just don’t know.

What I can be sure of, is that I’m due for a change, and that the same old stuff just isn’t going to cut it any more. It’s time for something more. What exactly that will mean, I do not know. I’m secretly hoping it will mean that my intake of Yoo-hoo will be drastically increased, but I can’t really be certain. Time will tell.

The post Something New appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Sometimes I am impressed and intimidated by people I know who do amazing things. They wake up early and go out into the world and accomplish so much. They work hard at their jobs, they’re super successful, they work with hundreds of people or for incredible causes. They create amazing art or writing or film and I grow envious of their apparent success. They give blood. Meanwhile, I’m barely scraping by with my stupid little go-nowhere jobs and a website full of talking raccoons. Granted, talking raccoons are pretty flippin’ sweet, but you can understand what I mean.

Sometimes I wish I could be more like those people. I wish I could achieve such success or notoriety. I wish I could walk down the street and people could say, “oh hey, there’s that guy who does flippin’ sweet cartoons.” (Although I DID get recognized at a local student film festival once.) Mostly I just wish I didn’t have to worry about careers and money so I could focus on the things that really matter and the things that are important to me. Like telling stupid little stories, and making flippin’ sweet cartoons.

The post What I Did Today appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

There’s nothing worse than another guy stealing your girl. If there’s one thing that television and movies have taught us, it’s that everyone hates that guy. Everyone.

It’s happened to me. Obviously the girl couldn’t have been in her right mind (obviously…), but it has happened to me nonetheless. At the time, I was young and somewhat immature, so naturally the fitting solution to this problem was to prank the new guy mercilessly.

There were several ill-advised attempts that worked in varying degrees, but the best one really showed off my skills as a prankster. You see, my newfound enemy had a habit of drinking soda. Dude drank soda like it was going out of style. Naturally, this seemed like an opportune method to deliver a prank that would surely somehow result in his removal as new boyfriend.

After much diabolical scheming, I stumbled upon the answer. Lemon flavored laxative. Oh yes. You read that right. It was time to fight dirty.

You know what happened next… There was much laxative dumped into many giant-sized sodas, I can tell you. I even overheard him mentioning that his colas had been tasting different lately. I have no idea how adversely the laxatives affected him. But in all of my imaginative scenarios, the poor fool was dropping a messy and greasy bowel movement every hour on the hour. And he deserved it. Jerk.

The post Obsessive Ex-Boyfriend appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

I’m stuck. I’m totally stuck. Not only is my future devoid of any kind of plan, but I can’t even think of anything clever or satirical to write under this comic strip. So I’m stuck in both the literal and the philosophical sense. I’m doubly stuck. Like a dinosaur caught in one of the La Brea Tar Pits while suffering a mid-life crisis. That’s me. Stuck-o-saurus  Rex. Someday people will find my bones and put me on display in a museum somewhere. But they’ll probably put the wrong skull on my body and then they’ll have to change my name later on when they realize I’m a completely different kind of Stuckeosaur. That would just be my kind of luck.

……………..

You still have a chance to be featured in an upcoming Raccoon Toons comic strip! The official rules are here, but it’s really very simple:

1. Like the site.

2. Share your favorite comic strip from the site with people who are awesome.

3. Tell me you shared.

4. Cookie.

SO easy!! Make sure you leave a comment somewhere, send me an email (matt at raccoontoons.com), or let me know SOMEHOW how you shared or I won’t know to enter you into the drawing. One lucky winner will be selected at random and they WILL be drawn into an upcoming Raccoon Toons comic strip! You have until 12:29 am (California time) on February 1st. Good luck.

The post Merry Go Round appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

I know I’m not really dying. Not really. But I’m not going to be 29 much longer. And 29 is significant to me. For me, 29 is really really lucky. Kind of like the lucky underwear that you wear during the playoffs. Yeah, that’s right. I know about your lucky underwear. So I’m a little saddened this year as my birthday looms nearer. Not because I’m entering a new decade that in my still adolescent mind is reserved only for old boring people who don’t play dodge ball, but because my lucky year will be expiring. And it has been a good year. One of the best actually. I finished school. I paid off some debts. My baseball team won the World Series. This website was relaunched. It’s been a pretty rockin’ good year, and I shouldn’t complain. But I’m going to miss being in my 20′s. But that’s ok I suppose…because I fully intend to pretend that I’m still in them. I’m pretty sure that’s part of being in your 30′s.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Raccoon Toons is doing comic strips 5 DAYS a week for this month! So be sure to check back M-F for the next several weeks!

The post Last Hurrah appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Every year when my birthday rolls around, I forget. Honestly. I forget my own birthday. It isn’t that I don’t like birthdays. It’s just that at this point my life isn’t quite where I want it to be. There are still a lot of things that I have yet to accomplish. So when my birthday rolls around I can’t help but look at back at yet another year in my lifespan and think about all the things that didn’t get done.

Dang. Now that I read that back to myself, it sounds really depressing. Ok. New deal. When I accomplish all those fancy life goals, when I get the high paying job, the hot little wife, and the 3.2 children with the white picket fence, I will celebrate my birthday. I’ll celebrate it, and I’ll celebrate it big. Maybe even with fireworks. My entire neighborhood will have to join in the festivities because I’ll be launching ridiculously loud and booming fireworks off my white picket fence with my 3.2 children while my hot little wife barbecues large amounts of red meat. It will be an annual party that the entire town looks forward to. And every year when it ends the neighbors will go home to their houses and families and say to each other, “Wow, that guy sure knows how to throw a birthday party! And did you see that picket fence?!?”

Yes, it will be an annual birthday bash of epic proportions. That way I’ll make up for all the nameless birthdays over the years that I forgot.

The post I’m Old appeared first on Raccoon Toons.